Gymnast McGarry Is All Smiles All the Time

She has been compared to Mary Lou Retton and Kerry Strug. In fact, members of the South Coast Gymnastics Academy call her “Mary Lou.”

But Mater Dei freshman Lauren McGarry just laughs at the nickname. She doesn’t take it seriously.

“They definitely are not comparing my talent to theirs,” she said, laughing.

It’s the laugh. It’s the constant smile and abundant energy that draws comparisons between the 14-year-old and past Olympic athletes. McGarry bounces her 5-foot-3 frame around the Santa Ana gym, helping the younger students and smiling endlessly.

McGarry admits she isn’t on track to walk in Retton’s footsteps, but she is good.

In April, she placed seventh in a field of 50 in the all-around at the U.S. Gymnastics Federation Regionals, which included athletes from five SouthWestern states.

McGarry’s score of 35.459 was tops among all Southern California competitors. Her best performance came in the floor exercise, where she took fourth with a score of 9.050.

Her finish qualifies her for the National Western Championships next week in Austin, Texas. It is the final stop on the competition tour this year. She is the only Southern California competitor to advance in her age group at her level.

There are 11 levels of gymnastics. Competition begins at Level 5, with tricks and applications getting tougher at each higher level. The highest, elite, is Olympic caliber. Level 10 is just below that. McGarry is competing at Level 9, but hopes to move up to 10 by the end of the season.

Like many young gymnasts, she dreamed of winning a gold medal in the Olympics.

“When I was younger it was my life goal,” McGarry said. “I would tell everyone I was going to go to the Olympics. Then it changed.”

After her family moved from Chicago to Irvine six years ago, she enrolled at the South Coast Gymnastics Academy, which is operated by former Chinese Olympians Xiaoping Li and Jia Wen, who are husband and wife.

In Chicago, McGarry, who started at age 5, originally participated in gymnastics for fun. Workouts were a couple of hours a day, twice a week. Her routine became more disciplined at South Coast, where she practiced three hours a day, four to five days a week.

As she got older, McGarry realized she wasn’t up for the sacrifice demanded of an elite gymnast. She still hopes to earn a gymnastics scholarship to UCLA or Penn State.

“I didn’t want that much of a commitment anymore,” she said. “I want to keep it low-key. I wanted to have a life. I don’t think I can handle missing everything. I’ve heard high school is the best time of your life and I want that.”

Mater Dei, however, like most county schools, doesn’t field a gymnastics team. So, like her brother Ryan, McGarry decided to try out for cross-country. She earned a varsity letter as a freshman.

“They were great letting me work out only once a week so I could keep up with my gymnastics,” she said. “If they had a gymnastics team, I would probably have done it just for fun. But since they didn’t, I wanted to do something to get involved at school. Nobody thought I would be any good at it. I think I shocked a lot of people.”

McGarry said her desire for a balanced life comes from her parents and their role in letting her make decisions.

“I always let Lauren drive the degree of her [gymnastics] training and the objective,” said Lauren’s mother, Mary, a former gymnast and dancer. “It is such a tough sport--the training required. It has to come from the kid.

“She was always very active, but always wanting to do constructive activities. She wasn’t one of those who would just go to the park; she liked a planned type of routine.

“Her first gym lesson, they were doing somersaults and the coaches were having a hard time getting the kids to try a cartwheel. Lauren just got up and did one.”